Accidental Feminist

I did all the things.

I came from a single parent home. It was, at the time, what I'd consider a nontraditional home with a nontraditional mom. She had a nontraditional job and we had a nontraditional house. We ate nontraditional food. It made us different in a world where my first born, people pleasing, fitting in self wanted desperately just to be like everyone else. I wanted Spaghettios from a can, dammit.

I think it was then that I formed this idea that a "traditional" woman, family, and marriage was most definitely the key to having a good life. I wanted to be a stay at home mom and I wanted to be a housewife. These were my goals. Through childhood, through my teens, through my early twenties. Sure, I went to college. But that was just to pass the time until I could live out my dream of being a traditional housewife.

Stay with me.

I wanted to be the mother that made her kids the center of her universe, making sure her kids wanted for nothing because it was the opposite of what I felt - that I'd been the center of nobody's universe and I wanted for everything.

I would be a perfect wife. I would put my husband first. I would never argue. I would never be nasty to him or belittle him and yell at him in public like I had seen other frustrated wives do. He would have dinner every night. I'd never ask him to help clean the house because the house and kids would be my job. We would be one. And I would trust him to take care of us. I would never say no. I would make sure I was always pleasant and pretty. And I'd stand by him no matter what.

And a two parent, traditional home would ensure my kids wouldn't have babies as teenagers or become drug addicts and overdose. It would mean my husband would be happy and so would I. And he'd never want for anything else either. He'd never leave.

Surely, all this was the perfect recipe, right?

Sidenote: I listened to a lot of Dr. Laura in my late teens and early twenties. I'm not going to discount her advise entirely. But let's just leave a period at the end of that sentence, which will be a representation of the frame of mind I was working with. Moving on.

All of this, I believed, would work. I didn't follow this recipe of complacency to the letter but I developed my own version of it. Even when it felt so totally unnatural and went against my deepest instinct, I shut up. I went along. I wasn't perfect at it. But I did the things. 

So imagine my surprise when doing the things didn't work.

Things aren't always black and white when your entire life abruptly changes. As your life chances so does your lens and how you see the world. It's easy to make judgements on what is right and what is wrong from the safety of your bubble with your own carefully contrived rose colored lens. But when that lens shatters into a million little pieces, you see the world differently.

My identity was wrapped up in my husband and kids and that's how I saw the world. In retrospect, when I started to fall into my own identity is when things might have started to shift in the dynamics of my marriage.

So when I found myself on my own with my children and no other person to share the responsibility, my lens and how I saw the world had to be rebuilt. How others saw me changed, too. The way society views a single mom versus a wife caring for her household is so vastly different and I felt it in more ways than one.

I think archaic and patriarchal thinking would say marriage kept women from "misbehaving." It would keep them physically and mentally in the home so they'd be "safe" and well behaved. Ideas like that seem crazy but they permeate and leave traces through generations. A woman's worth has been tied to her ability to marry and keep a husband happy. This is evident in various cultures, not just American culture. Because if you can't keep a husband happy, then what's wrong with you?

I think women's independence is scary to some. Downright threatening to generations of men and women before us. It wasn't until my own safe bubble and my own carefully constructed black and white lens was busted that it opened my eyes to a lot of real shit that's going on. Not just with women but injustices of all types of colors and flavors. Not in a - poor me, my ex husband sucked, I'm a single mom now - kind of way. But in a - safe bubble has been busted wide open and now I am sensitive to so many things - kind of way.

When you are vulnerable you open doors to connection and feeling. When you feel pain of your own you can recognize and identify it in others. It doesn't even have to be the same pain. But it's a sensitivity. An understanding. An awareness.

So accidental feminist? I guess it was because I started hearing women say things like:

My husband won't let me wear this..
My husband won't let me do this...
My husband will get mad if I...

Vomit. That was my mental reaction without any planning or interpretation. It was a visceral feeling of immediate defiance. I used to be that girl. I did the things. I said those words. But fuck that noise.

Professionally, it took on a whole new meaning. Women are supposed to be cute and nice. Never to be outspoken or loud. And definitely not too full of themselves or proud or self fulfilling. Nobody wants that. Do you know how many men hate the phrase "girlboss?" or anything women empowering? Do I care? Not in the slightest. Do I notice? Absolutely.

Now, I don't want to come off as a man hater. Or as a marriage hater. It's not my style. I love love. I still love tradition. I love the romantic notion that you can trust in your partner to take care of you. That two become one. I still believe in forever before God. And, although I have my short comings and regrets, I still have a great love and appreciation for the ten good years of my marriage before the bubble burst.

But I sure wasn't prepared for independence and it should have been something I never relinquished. Because gaining it back feels downright euphoric.

As for not being the center of my parents' universe and wanting my kids to be the center of mine, I used to feel like my parents were selfish because of it but they were actually doing me a favor. A lot of my ingrained and innate feelings of independence come from exactly that - not being put on a pedestal. Because during my marriage I was on that pedestal and I so freely gave up all of my independence in trade. When I fell off that pedestal I was empty and I had no idea who I was. And my lens quickly changed. I had to become the center of my own universe to find my independence again. And not everyone was okay with that.

So this once very politically conservative, opinionated wannabe housewife sounds like an accidental feminist when she talks.

Do I still have conservative and faith based ideas and beliefs? Absolutely. But I also have a realization that things are not black white. Things are not just in this world. Things are not equal. And just because you do all the things doesn't mean life will be fair. Sometime there will be nothing you can do. But when there is something you can do you gotta show up and fight. Whether I agree with the cause or not, I support the showing up. My lens makes me see things differently. Tell me more. Help me understand. That's where I am now.

I live in the nontraditional. I've found my independence here.

And I hate Spaghettios.